Crypto-Radarhttp://www.crypto-radar.com
Bringing you the latest news in the technology & crypto space.Wed, 24 Jan 2018 06:57:14 +0000en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4https://i1.wp.com/www.crypto-radar.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/cropped-Untitled-1-1.png?fit=32%2C32Crypto-Radarhttp://www.crypto-radar.com
3232139742487Ending Bitcoin Supporthttp://www.crypto-radar.com/ending-bitcoin-support/
http://www.crypto-radar.com/ending-bitcoin-support/#respondWed, 24 Jan 2018 02:44:15 +0000http://www.crypto-radar.com/?p=228At Stripe, we’ve long been excited about the possibilities of cryptocurrencies and the experimentation and innovation that’s come with them. In 2014, we became the first major payments company to support Bitcoin payments.

Our hope was that Bitcoin could become a universal, decentralized substrate for online transactions and help our customers enable buyers in places that had less credit card penetration or use cases where credit card fees were prohibitive.

Over the past year or two, as block size limits have been reached, Bitcoin has evolved to become better-suited to being an asset than being a means of exchange. Given the overall success that the Bitcoin community has achieved, it’s hard to quibble with the decisions that have been made along the way. (And we’re certainly happy to see any novel, ambitious project do so well.)

This has led to Bitcoin becoming less useful for payments, however. Transaction confirmation times have risen substantially; this, in turn, has led to an increase in the failure rate of transactions denominated in fiat currencies. (By the time the transaction is confirmed, fluctuations in Bitcoin price mean that it’s for the “wrong” amount.) Furthermore, fees have risen a great deal. For a regular Bitcoin transaction, a fee of tens of U.S. dollars is common, making Bitcoin transactions about as expensive as bank wires.

Because of this, we’ve seen the desire from our customers to accept Bitcoin decrease. And of the businesses that are accepting Bitcoin on Stripe, we’ve seen their revenues from Bitcoin decline substantially. Empirically, there are fewer and fewer use cases for which accepting or paying with Bitcoin makes sense.

Therefore, starting today, we are winding down support for Bitcoin payments. Over the next three months we will work with affected Stripe users to ensure a smooth transition before we stop processing Bitcoin transactions on April 23, 2018.

Despite this, we remain very optimistic about cryptocurrencies overall. There are a lot of efforts that we view as promising and that we can certainly imagine enabling support for in the future. We’re interested in what’s happening with Lightning and other proposals to enable faster payments. OmiseGO is an ambitious and clever proposal; more broadly, Ethereum continues to spawn many high-potential projects. We may add support for Stellar (to which we provided seed funding) if substantive use continues to grow. It’s possible that Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, or another Bitcoin variant, will find a way to achieve significant popularity while keeping settlement times and transaction fees very low. Bitcoin itself may become viable for payments again in the future. And, of course, there’ll be more ideas and technologies in the years ahead.

So, we will continue to pay close attention to the ecosystem and to look for opportunities to help our customers by adding support for cryptocurrencies and new distributed protocols in the future.

Cryptocurrencies have had a rough week: the value of bitcoin plunged to a mere 50 percent of its 2017 peak, and other currencies, such as Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin have seen double-digit losses compared to their heights from last year. Tuesday also witnessed the collapse of BitConnect, an anonymously operated crypto exchange that had been repeatedly accused of running a Ponzi scheme via its proprietary BCC currency.

Taken together, these events may simply act as another reminder of the “volatility” of the cryptocurrency market, which saw bitcoin rise to a peak of $19,783 on December 17th. Bitcoin has gone through multiple crashes before: in spring 2011, in November 2013, and in January 2017. However, this current bubble comes against a new backdrop: a global tide of regulation against the inchoate cryptocurrency industry. On one hand, these regulations may be scaring bitcoin investors into selling their coins now before the full impact of regulation makes itself felt. On the other, it may also be threatening suspect exchanges such as BitConnect, with its own token declining in value by 46 percent between December 17th and January 15th — the day before it announced its closure.

THE VALUE OF BITCOIN PLUNGED TO A MERE 50 PERCENT OF ITS 2017 PEAK

In the United States, regulation has reared its head in the form of the SEC. Last month, its newly formed Cyber Unit pressed charges for the first time against PlexCorps, which was accused of defrauding investors through a questionable initial coin offering, or ICO. Almost a week later, SEC chairman Jay Clayton issued a warning on cryptocurrencies to investors, hinting that the commission would begin monitoring the market more closely for any potential violations of securities laws. The US isn’t the only nation taking a harder line on cryptocurrencies, either: the Chinese government tightened its ban on crypto trading this week, and the South Korean government is planning on implementing a similar ban itself.

This global movement toward harsher regulation has been cited as a major cause of the exodus of value that has gripped cryptocurrencies in the past week. It would also potentially account for BitConnect’s collapse, which came after multiple cease and desist letters from securities watchdogs in Texas and North Carolina.

A historic lack of regulation likely contributed to the current bitcoin bubble by facilitating market manipulation and duplicitous trading practices. Even as bitcoin became a household name in 2017, such practices remained common. In November, a Business Insider investigation discovered that “pump and dump” scams — where investor groups artificially inflate cryptocurrency values by orchestrating mass purchases of coins — were “rife” on the US exchange Bittrex. Similarly, Bitfinex, the biggest exchange by daily volume, acknowledged market manipulation on its platform in August, when it revealed that it had detected several accounts engaging in “large-scale manipulation tactics” relating to the Bitcoin Cash currency.

SUCH MANIPULATIVE ACTIVITY COULD BE THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

Such manipulative activity could be the tip of the iceberg, given that certain critics have even accused Bitfinex of creating Tether, a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, in order to buy bitcoins and artificially inflate the latter’s value. What’s clear is that such disreputable methods as “pump and dump” and “spoofing” are possible because exchanges like Bitfinex are unregulated. In any regulated market, the action of traders such as the infamous “Spoofy” would be illegal. Yet, without the active oversight of the SEC or FINRA, they can be carried in the cryptocurrency market with impunity.

Because market manipulation has helped push cryptocurrencies to dizzy, grossly inflated heights, the recent falls in value have been similarly spectacular. But unlike with previous drops, the newly emerging drive to regulate the cryptocurrency market could hobble a recovery. Assuming that the likes of the SEC and FINRA begin clamping down on fraudulent trading practices, and assuming that these practices were vital to Bitcoin’s precipitous rise, then Bitcoin may very well struggle to climb as quickly in 2018 as it did in 2017. Not only will the parties responsible for manipulative trading be inclined to sell their ill-gotten gains and run, but an increasing number of people will fully realize that the cryptocurrency market is a hive of dubious activity. That said, if greater regulation tamps down disreputable practices and brings the cryptocurrency into the regulatory mainstream, the longer-term trend may only be upward.

]]>http://www.crypto-radar.com/this-weeks-bitcoin-crash-was-all-about-fraud-and-regulation/feed/02212018: The Year Blockchain, AI and IoT Convergehttp://www.crypto-radar.com/2018-the-year-blockchain-ai-and-iot-converge/
http://www.crypto-radar.com/2018-the-year-blockchain-ai-and-iot-converge/#respondSun, 14 Jan 2018 17:02:55 +0000http://www.crypto-radar.com/?p=2112017 was the year that cryptocurrency became mainstream.

But what’s even more exciting to many of us who have been investing in the sector for the past several years is the development of the underlying technology.

Blockchain technology, which powers most cryptocurrencies, is in nascent stages. This past year, we started seeing some early proof points of how this new infrastructure can be used, including the announcement by the Australian Securities Exchange that it would replace its current post-trade settlement process with a blockchain system, after running both concurrently.

This reminds me of the process large enterprises went through in the late 1990s and early 2000s as they moved from client-server software to web-based software, transitioning their supply chain and procurement processes online. They conducted extensive return on investment (ROI) studies to justify the upfront cost of replacing current systems. Twenty years later, the ROI is obvious, but many companies viewed the risk as significant at the time.

I believe we’ll continue to see more companies across more industries in 2018 take a look at how blockchain technology can create efficiencies (and potentially new business models in the future).

When I launched Future\Perfect Ventures in 2014 around the thesis of decentralization, I was most excited about the combination of blockchain with other emerging technologies, including machine learning/AI, security and internet of things. In this way, I expect 2018 will be the year that we start to see the convergence of these technologies to truly create the decentralized computing and communications platforms of the future.

Decentralization, by its very nature, requires that more intelligence shifts to nodes instead of residing in one central server.

We will continue to see the development of semiconductors that are capable of advanced computing in smaller and smaller devices. As devices at the edge become smarter, the smart contracts enabled by blockchain platforms will work better with more advanced data analytics capabilities.

I see a mini-brain in each of our devices, ranging from simplistic ones to ones capable of processing larger datasets and making decisions based on that data.

The open availability of more data and smarter processing at the nodes will enable broader datasets available to more companies and people, instead of proprietary data ownership that currently exists within companies such as Facebook and Google. More importantly, that data will be diverse and representative of the world we live in, instead of being filtered by a few companies that reside in one geography.

While this may not all happen within the next year, we have started an inevitable march towards that future, one that will be even more transformative than the internet was.

]]>http://www.crypto-radar.com/2018-the-year-blockchain-ai-and-iot-converge/feed/0211The Litmus Test for White Papers: Differentiating Cryptocurrencies Using States of Matterhttp://www.crypto-radar.com/the-litmus-test-for-white-papers-differentiating-cryptocurrencies-using-states-of-matter/
http://www.crypto-radar.com/the-litmus-test-for-white-papers-differentiating-cryptocurrencies-using-states-of-matter/#respondSun, 14 Jan 2018 13:36:38 +0000http://www.crypto-radar.com/?p=207As an avid user of Reddit within the last two months focusing on altcoins (I have invested a quite a bit). One trend seems to stand out among redditors. They usually ask the question “What makes this coin/token stand out?”.

I understand that many would rather avoid reading the white paper and follow the hype but that is a dangerous road to trod. Personally, after having “hits” with several coins in my portfolio that have grown between 5x and 25x over the last couple of months. I can only say I am grateful. With that said, I am not here to praise what I have done but rather share the first basic formula I use in choosing altcoins/tokens to invest in.

I use the three (3) basic states of matter we all learned about during elementary school to categorize white papers: Solid, Liquid and Gas(Air more loosely).

The Solids — Rate of failure: 50%

These are companies that were already operational but are finding/have found a way to integrate blockchain technology within their core operations. Their existence was not solely dependent on the cryptocurrency world but they’ve found away to benefit from it. These whitepapers are usually financially and operationally sound if nothing else since in most cases they already have P/L statements and a reliable organizational structure. E.g. Binance (ranked #25 on CMC), Civic (Ranked #104) and RentBerry (which is close to wrapping up its token sale).

The Liquids — Rate of failure: 55%

These aren’t companies but projects that may become companies. They usually appear in the form of coins and their white papers are primarily technical more than anything else. Liquid in terms of states of matter is touted as having the ability to take “shape”. Translating that into white paper means these projects are also trying to shape the future with the current tech they are working on. Lisk (Ranked #20), Ark (Ranked #46) and Neblio (Ranked #82) all come to mind.

The Gases (Air) — Rate of failure: 90%

These are perhaps the easiest to define. No Tech, No real company; just a white paper and team sometimes ranging from a dozen to over a score of individuals. They generally appear in the form of a token. You will often find yourself asking the questions: “why?” and “how?”. This is not to say they won’t deliver but they have nothing yet and it’s important to be cautious when investing in them. While I gave examples for the previous two (2) states. I rather not do so with this one as it is not my intention to harm anyone’s reputation. However, this should be pretty easy to find out just by visiting the website (if there is one). The white paper is just a bonus.

The above isn’t the only vital piece of information that determine how good an investment might be but it’s a good base for getting your feet grounded.

I reject the idea that 90% of the cryptocurrency projects will fail or that we are in a bubble. I believe that closer to 50% will fail and that the current market cap of $600+ billion can’t be considered a bubble when Facebook (one fortune 500 company) is rivaling that value. If we were speaking of $6 trillion dollars then it would be a different story. Let’s save the bubble talk until it approaches a multi-trillion dollar market cap.

@sanje.witter

]]>http://www.crypto-radar.com/the-litmus-test-for-white-papers-differentiating-cryptocurrencies-using-states-of-matter/feed/0207Winds of change: Britain now generates twice as much electricity from wind as coalhttp://www.crypto-radar.com/winds-of-change-britain-now-generates-twice-as-much-electricity-from-wind-as-coal/
http://www.crypto-radar.com/winds-of-change-britain-now-generates-twice-as-much-electricity-from-wind-as-coal/#respondMon, 08 Jan 2018 07:12:33 +0000http://www.crypto-radar.com/?p=198

Just six years ago, more than 40% of Britain’s electricity was generated by burning coal. Today, that figure is just 7%. Yet if the story of 2016 was the dramatic demise of coal and its replacement by natural gas, then 2017 was most definitely about the growth of wind power.

Wind provided 15% of electricity in Britain last year (Northern Ireland shares an electricity system with the Republic and is calculated separately), up from 10% in 2016. This increase, a result of both more wind farms coming online and a windier year, helped further reduce coal use and also put a stop to the rise in natural gas generation.

In October 2017, the combination of wind, solar and hydro generated a quarter of Britain’s electricity over the entire month, a new record helped by ex-hurricane Ophelia and storm Brian.

Great Britain’s annual electrical energy mix 2017 per month (note: nuclear and gas not shown)Author calculations from data sources: National Grid and Elexon

Since that record month, large new offshore wind farms have started to come online. Dudgeon began generating off the Norfolk coast, as did Rampion, which can be seen from Brighton town centre.

In all, Britain’s wind output increased by 14 terawatt hours between 2016 and 2017 – enough to power 4.5m homes. To give a sense of scale, this increase alone is more than the expected annual output from one of the two new nuclear reactors being built at Hinkley Point C.

Not only is offshore wind growing fast, it is also getting much cheaper. When the latest round of government auctions for low-carbon electricity were awarded last year, two of the winning bids from offshore wind developers had a “strike price” of £57.50 per megawatt hour (MWh). This is considerably cheaper than the equivalent contract for Hinkley Point of £92.50/MWh (in 2012 prices).

Although these wind farms won’t be built for another five years, this puts competitive pressure on other forms of low-carbon electricity. If there is to be a nuclear renaissance, or if fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage are to become a reality, these industries will have to adjust to the new economic reality of renewable energy.

Britain is using less electricity

Overall demand for electricity also continued its 12-year downward trend. More of the electricity “embedded” in the products and services used in the UK is now imported rather than produced at home, and energy efficiency measures mean the country can do more with less. This meant Britain in 2017 used about as much electricity as it did way back in 1987 – despite the considerable population growth.

At some point this trend will reverse though, as electric vehicles and heat pumps become more common and electricity partly replaces liquid fuels for transport and natural gas for heating respectively. One major challenge this brings is how to accommodate greater seasonal and daily variation in the electricity system, without resorting to the benefits of fossil fuels, which can be pretty cheaply stored until required.

Electricity guzzlers.Jan Faukner / shutterstock

Electricity generated in Britain is now the cleanest it’s ever been. Coal and natural gas together produced less than half of the total generated. Britain’s electricity was completely “coal free” for 613 hours last year, up from 200 hours in 2016. This position would be wholly unthinkable in many countries including Germany, India, China and the US, which still rely heavily on coal generation throughout the year.

However, the low level of coal generation over 2017 masks its continued importance in providing capacity during hours of peak demand. During the top 10% hours of highest electrical demand, coal provided a sixth of Britain’s electricity. When it matters most, coal is relied on more than nuclear, and more than the combined output from wind + solar + hydro. Additional energy storage could help wind and solar meet more of this peak demand with greater certainty.

Looking forward to 2018, we would be surprised if wind generation dropped much from its current levels. Last year wasn’t even particularly windy compared to the longer-term average, and more capacity will be coming online. Equally, it would be surprising if solar and hydro combined produced significantly less than they did last year.

It is therefore inevitable that another significant milestone will be reached this year. At some point, for several hours, wind, solar and hydro will together, for the first time, provide more than half of Britain’s electricity generation. This goes to show just how much a major power system can be reworked within a decade.

]]>http://www.crypto-radar.com/winds-of-change-britain-now-generates-twice-as-much-electricity-from-wind-as-coal/feed/0198Google’s voice-generating AI is now indistinguishable from humanshttp://www.crypto-radar.com/googles-voice-generating-ai-is-now-indistinguishable-from-humans/
http://www.crypto-radar.com/googles-voice-generating-ai-is-now-indistinguishable-from-humans/#respondWed, 27 Dec 2017 02:18:39 +0000http://www.crypto-radar.com/?p=173Humans have officially given their voice to machines.

A research paper published by Google this month—which has not been peer reviewed—details a text-to-speech system called Tacotron 2, which claims near-human accuracy at imitating audio of a person speaking from text.

The system is Google’s second official generation of the technology, which consists of two deep neural networks. The first network translates the text into a spectrogram (pdf), a visual way to represent audio frequencies over time. That spectrogram is then fed into WaveNet, a system from Alphabet’s AI research lab DeepMind, which reads the chart and generates the corresponding audio elements accordingly.

You can listen to two samples below. Keep in mind one sample from each sentence is generated by AI, and the other is a human hired by Google. We don’t know for sure which is which. (However, if you reveal the “page source” and look at the filenames of each on the Google research website, one is labeled “gen,” ostensibly to mark the generated sample.)

The Google researchers also demonstrate that Tacotron 2 can handle hard-to-pronounce words and names, as well as alter the way it enunciates based on punctuation. For instance, capitalized words are stressed, as someone would do when indicating that specific word is an important part of a sentence.

Unlike some core AI research the company does, this technology is immediately useful to Google. WaveNet, first announced in 2016, is now used to generate the voice in Google Assistant. Once readied for production, Tacotron 2 could be an even more powerful addition to the service.

However, the system is only trained to mimic the one female voice; to speak like a male or different female, Google would need to train the system again.

QUIZ TIME

Now for the fun bit try and guess which one is the AI & which one is the female actor.

Like a Cross Between the Washington Monument and Wall-E’s Girlfriend

Elon Musk has all the best toys. Not only does he get to play with (and build) space rockets at SpaceX, he’s also chairman of the biggest solar installer in the U.S. (SolarCity) and CEO of the coolest electric car company. But his latest toy is particularly cool because it shows that Musk’s goal is not to only make a few expensive EVs, but to actually demonstrate that electric cars can work in the real world and pull off a feat that hasn’t been done in decades: build a viable new car company in the US.

Last night Tesla unveiled its Supercharger network of EV charging stations. The goal is to go from this:

To this:

What’s Special About Tesla’s Supercharger?

But what is it exactly? Well, Tesla’s Superchargers are different primarily because of the amount of current they can dump into a Model S battery pack. Right now they can reach close to 100 kilowatts, and Musk said that they should be able to get up to 120KW in the future. That’s over 4.5x time more power than even a Twin Charger. This means that in about half an hour, they could add 150 miles of range to the 85kWh Model S. This means you could leave for a trip in the morning (with a fully charged battery, of course, since EVs are almost always plugged overnight), drive until you feel like taking a bathroom break or get a coffee or whatever, and recharge enough to drive a few more hours.

“Superchargers are located at places you’ll actually want to stop, like roadside diners, cafes, and shopping centers. So pull in, plug in, and grab a bite to eat. Model S will be ready when you get back.”

Solar-Powered!

SolarCity gave Tesla a hand with the Supercharger. They will also include solar panels that are sized to, overall, produce more electricity than the cars charging at the station will consume. So over a year they would actually be net contributors to the power grid, and this means that Tesla owners who charge there will actually be driving on sunlight. Oh, and the Supercharger stations are free, and will remain free “forever”, Musk promised. How’s that for a good deal?

This map shows the location of the 6 Supercharger stations that Tesla built in secret. These are good to go, and have actually been tested by real users. The red circles show the all-electric driving range around the stations, and thus how much area is covered by them.

Actual operations seems very simple.

On Tesla’s video stream yesterday we could see a car being recharged, and the driving range went up before our eyes, adding a mile of charge every few seconds.

As you can see, Tesla’s not kidding. It was good enough that this wasn’t yet another vaporware announcement and that they actually had built 6 stations in secret, and that they are working, but they also have big expansion plans. The slide above shows their target for 2013, which would cover all of California and a bit of the surrounding states.

But the real goal looks more like this…

…and this! And we can probably safely assume that Europe and Asia would be next. Now that’s a large-scale vision! And the beauty is that by the time all these are built, Tesla will probably have a model that is a lot less expensive to sell. All these stations will give Tesla a big competitive advantage over other EV makers (and it’ll push others to build similar fast-charging stations, so everybody wins).

Not too surprisingly considering Elon Musk’s involvement with SpaceX, the launch of the Supercharger looked a bit like a space rocket takeoff.

With Bitcoin soaring and setting several new all-time high records in 2017, the cryptocurrency market has gained a lot of attention in the media and general public. According to CNBC the largest US bitcoin exchange (Coinbase) added 100,000 new customers after CBOE Futures Exchange launched trading of bitcoin futures.

This exposure to the general public caused a massive increase in interest of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency space. If you are one of the billions of people on social media, chances are you saw a post about bitcoin from one of your friends or colleagues.

Thanks to Bitcoin, the other two cryptocurrencies available on Coinbase, Ethereum and Litecoin saw massive gains as well. According to coinmarketcap.com, the overall global market capitalization for cryptocurrencies went from $170 billion in September 2017 to $690 billion in mid-December 2017. This massive increase is a combination of institutional money and general public money coming into the market. One of the major sectors of the general public investors comes from the tech savvy Millennials. According to one article, one in three Millennials will own cryptocurrencies by the end of 2018.

One of the major reasons why Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum saw major increases in value, is due the fact that they are easily available to trade with fiat money in major exchanges around the world. For instance, in Coinbase, you can easily link your bank account or credit card to the site and purchase one of the three coins with the push of a button. For someone who is new to this field, which most people are at this point, is a major ease of use. However, if you want to buy one of the other cryptocurrencies you would need to first buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin, transfer to one of the other exchanges (Poloniex, Bittrex, Binance, and etc) and then purchase the cryptocurrency you are interested in.

As people get more familiarized with how cryptocurrencies work, they will surely want to participate in other promising projects that are in their early stages or have had major developments in the past few months.

I have noticed that most people who saw major gains in their cryptocurrency investments, want to apply those gains to other projects. Others who are completely new to this space, but want to participate with a small amount of money, are looking for something alot cheaper than the current price of Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin. This is on of the biggest reasons why I believe 2018 will be a big year for other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin being almost $20,000 a coin, makes it very hard for someone to purchase even one. People who are new to cryptocurrencies will look for promising projects that they can participate in without shilling out $20,000.

Institutions and hedge funds have also gotten involved in other cryptocurrencies with promising projects in the blockchain space. They see 2018 as a big year for increasing their investments into projects that are unique, have good development teams, and good community support, among other major factors. As more regulations come in, institutional money and investments will increase dramatically.

That being said, the cryptocurrency market in general continues to be volatile and risky. This is where a lot of research must be done before participating in any of these projects.

I am sure Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin will continue to do well but according to my research there are several great cryptocurrencies that are very undervalued and should have even greater success in 2018. The key to researching new projects with potential is looking into several factors, including, but not limited to, strong management and development team, passionate community of developers and supporters, community involvement, partnerships, market cap and number of coins available, realistic goals and roadmap, and proper use of blockchain technology. Based on my research, I have ranked the top five below. I will not go into too much detail for each one because I do not want this article to be too long but just a quick introduction of each one. Hopefully you will do your own detailed research.

Cardano (http://www.cardanohub.org) — Cardano is a decentralised public blockchain and cryptocurrency project and is fully open source. Cardano is developing a smart contract platform which seeks to deliver more advanced features than any protocol previously developed. It is the first blockchain platform to evolve out of a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach. The development team consists of a large global collective of expert engineers and researchers. Seeing the explosive growth so far this year show this coin has some serious potential in 2018.

NEO (neo.org) — The reason why I ranked this smart contract platform as the number one cryptocurrency for 2018 is because of several reasons including, upcoming NEO based ICOs, strong management team, an amazing global open community of developers (City of Zion), strategic partnerships with other companies, digital identity, and smart economy. NEO’s functionality is similar to Ethereum but is extremely undervalued in my opinion. NEO also supports many popular development languages such as Java, .NET, Python and others.

OmiseGO (omisego.network) — This is one of the most promising projects in the entire crypto space. Omise is an already existing company in Asia with a strong team and advisors that include the founder Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin. They have several strong partnerships with major companies in Asia. Their promise is to unbank the banked.

BAT (basicattentiontoken.org)— Basic Attention Token (BAT) is one of the few projects in this space that have an already working product. Brave is a web browser created by the BAT team that improves the efficiency of the digital advertisement industry. The founder of BAT is the same person who created the highly popular web development language, Javascript.

Golem (golem.network) — If the development team succeed in releasing a functional product as they have promised, Golem will truly be one of the best use cases for the blockchain technology. Golem is trying to create the first decentralized global super computer. Their mission is to use all the unused computing power around the world (including personal devices) to increase rendering efficiency that requires massive computing power to function (such as animation movies).

Civic (civic.com) — With the major credit bureau hacks this year, Civic is trying to solve the identity security issue. They also have a functioning product (Civic App) that lets your identity be easily verified on the blockchain with a QR code. With a simple scan of a QR code, civil is removing the pain of user sign-ups/sign-ins. They already have several major partnerships that include wikiHow.com and many others.

As the interest grows in the cryptocurrency field and more everyday people get involved, it is obvious that this young market will face some trials and tribulations. At the end of the day it is everyone’s personal responsibility to do their due diligence and perform extensive research before participating in any of these projects.

No one can see the future but I personally believe that in the upcoming years, the blockchain technology will have a huge impact on several industries. Every time a new disruptive technology like blockchain comes in and tries to change the way we do things, it faces many difficulties. Twenty years ago, if somebody told you, “you can use a small personal device to connect to anyone in the world, take pictures, use live video, pay for groceries,” you would have laughed and told them they were crazy. We are facing the same kind of disrupting ideas when we talk about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Therefore, surely there will be a lot of naysayers in the beginning. But hopefully blockchain will be a part of our daily lives in the future. I personally hope these companies succeed and change the way we do things in my lifetime.

Disclaimer: Statements on this article represent author’s personal views and shall not be taken as investment advice. The information on this article is provided for discussion purposes only, and are not investing recommendations. Under no circumstances does this information represent a recommendation to buy or sell assets, cryptocurrencies, or securities.

In a world where everything is digital, there’s something special about the paper touch. HP’s Sprocket prints off social media photos or anything else you can find on your internet phone onto sticky snapshots. It’s like a modern Polaroid. The pictures are only 2×3 so they’re great for scrapbookers and other types prone to hoarding memories analog-style.

While printers are notoriously the worst devices ever, this HP Sprocket suffers from none of the usual pitfalls; it’s totally ink-less! There’s no jamming to speak of. This tiny printer is a great time for anyone who enjoys paper photos, stickers, and scrapbooking.

2. Glidecam HD-2000 Stabiliser

The lightweight and state-of-the-art Glidecam HD-2000 hand-held Camera Stabilizers will transform your hard to watch, shaky camera footage into hypnotically smooth, professional footage. The Glidecam HD-Series offers advanced features and a degree of sophistication never before seen in a line of Hand-held Camera Stabilizers. With the Glidecam HD-Series hand-held Stabilizers your camcorder seems to float, always balanced, isolated from your hands undesirable motions. Now you are free to move with your camera – panning, tilting, booming or running without any camera instability or shake. The Glidecam HD-Series works so well that it allows you to shoot incredibly smooth and graceful shots even while going to extremes like running up and down stairs or traveling over rugged terrain. And when it comes to normal shooting, like walking or moving the camera slowly around someone, the results are equally magical.

Note: It is a normal phenomenon if you want to use ND filters together, like ND2+ND4,ND4+ND8,ND2+ND8 or ND2+4+8, the photo effect will become to light pink color, you could set “white balance” as “AUTO” to improve it, But will not be completely disappeared.

7. Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2 TB Hard Drive

The Seagate Backup Plus portable drive simplifies backup for those who want to help protect their entire digital life locally, in the cloud or from their mobile devices and social networks. The slim, metal design providespremium portability – allowing you to slide the drive into your pocket, purse or backpack and carry it with you.

High-speed USB 3.0 and 2.0 connectivity offers plug-and-play functionality on your PC without the need of an external power supply. Plus, install the provided NTFS driver for Mac and you can use your Backup Plus drive interchangeably between Windows and Mac computers without reformatting.

Via the Seagate Dashboard software, you are provided with tools for local, mobile, cloud and social media backup. Run a one-click backup or schedule an automatic backup plan to protect your files in your Backup Plus portable drive at your convenience. Install the free Seagate Mobile Backup app on an iOS or Android mobile device to back up all of the pictures and videos fromthe device to your external drive or the cloud.

9. RØDE VideoMic GO On Camera Microphone

Clear, directional audio on the GO! Compact and light weight by design, the VideoMic GO delivers clear, crisp, directional audio with incredible ease of use. Its tight pickup area focuses directly in front of the microphone and reduces other surrounding sounds, ensuring that your subject is isolated from distracting background noise. The integrated Rycote Lyre shock mount isolates your microphone from bumps and vibrations that could otherwise interfere with your sound. Constructed from a single piece of hard-wearing thermoplastic, the Lyre provides superior acoustic suspension to traditional elastic solutions, and will never wear out, sag or snap. The VideoMic GO has no complicated switches or settings and is powered by your camera’s external microphone input, requiring no batteries to operate, ensuring you never miss a great shot. The VideoMic GO is designed and made in Australia.

10. Neewer CN 160 LED CN-160 Dimmable Ultra High Power Panel

The Neewer CN-160 helps to ensure perfect settings for your photography or video subject.
With it’s lightweight and durable construction, you can carry this light around with you wherever you go.
The Neewer CN-160 features 160 super-bright LED lights and is equipped with a dimmer switch so you can adjust the intensity while shooting. The layout allows for quick, easy adjustments to be made so you never miss that perfect shot! The Neewer CN-160 can mount to any standard hot shoe on most DSLR or digital video cameras as well as tripods and light stands equipped with a hot shoe mount or 1/4-inch thread. It is also equipped with a pivoting head, allowing you to raise or lower the light’s angle. The light is battery powered and requires 6x AA Lithium Ion batteries (not included). With the included battery adapter, you can substitute the AA batteries for Sony NP-FH, NP-FM or NP-F Series, or Panasonic CGR-D16S rechargeable batteries. Battery life can easily be monitored using the battery power indicator located under the battery compartment. The Neewer CN-160 LED Video Light is easy to install and use and will make a great addition to your photography or video studio.